Actually, given the comments from Microsoft and Google, it's entirely possible that they might be. Neither of them things voice recognition has much value, so why spend money on it?

Sure I do. Search this forum for thousands of posts from PC people arguing that their PC was so superior to the Mac because the Mac didn't have a native version of Doom/warfare/shootemup of the month.

There's probably a lot of truth to that. Google only invests in things that might improve their ad revenue. Although I'm sure they'll find a way around that problem - like emailing your ads to you after you make a voice search request.

But, you (from your device, location, IP address, cookies, etc.) won't make the request to Google -- Siri will, through Apple's servers... Google will not know who you are or be able to mine your data!

NCDC is going to get a lot of advertising spam.

By using Siri, we are deputizing her to protect our privacy!

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

I agree with those that say Siri is going to be HUGE. This completely turns the conventional use of tools on its head (multitouch is going to look like a baby step compared to this). Language (i.e. literacy) is arguably one (if not, the ONE) of a few advancements that have forever changed humanity. Up until this point our use of tools has been limited to the physical realm. This is now no longer the case. Siri is by far and away the tipping point in shifting this paradigm.

We've been using language for a few generations now. It's been useful. But the alphabet has just been invented... can't wait to see what happens next.

I agree with those that say Siri is going to be HUGE. This completely turns the conventional use of tools on its head (multitouch is going to look like a baby step compared to this). Language (i.e. literacy) is arguably one (if not, the ONE) of a few advancements that have forever changed humanity. Up until this point our use of tools has been limited to the physical realm. This is now no longer the case. Siri is by far and away the tipping point in shifting this paradigm.

We've been using language for a few generations now. It's been useful. But the alphabet has just been invented... can't wait to see what happens next.

K

+++ QFT

This person understands!

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

So the next thing they'll be telling us is that we should all go back to basic phone because THAT is all we need. Siri is outstanding for a first release. Honestly, it makes texting and email so cool. And I'm just starting to learn what it can do.

As long as you know you are emailing and texting Apple at the same time. What they are doing with it they haven't said yet.

There's probably a lot of truth to that. Google only invests in things that might improve their ad revenue. Although I'm sure they'll find a way around that problem - like emailing your ads to you after you make a voice search request.

Right! As if anyone would be caught opening an email that was an ad! Fool me once...

I have read those documents repeatedly and have yet to find any mention of what they are doing with the information they are collecting with Siri. If you use it to make an appointment they know with whom and when. If you use Siri to call a number, they know to whom and when. If you use Siri to compose a text or an email, they know the person and the words you used.

Please show me where these privacy concerns are addressed. I'm not saying the policies don't exist only that I am unable to find them.

I have read those documents repeatedly and have yet to find any mention of what they are doing with the information they are collecting with Siri. If you use it to make an appointment they know with whom and when. If you use Siri to call a number, they know to whom and when. If you use Siri to compose a text or an email, they know the person and the words you used.

Please show me where these privacy concerns are addressed. I'm not saying the policies don't exist only that I am unable to find them.

Under Software>iOS5:
"(c) Siri. If your iOS Device supports Siri, which includes the dictation feature, these features allow you to make requests, give commands and dictate text to your device using your voice. When you use Siri, the things you say will be recorded and sent to Apple to process your requests. Your device will also send Apple other information, such as your first name and nickname; the names, nicknames, and relationship with you (e.g., “my dad”) of your address book contacts; and song names in your collection (collectively, your “User Data”). All of this data is used to help Siri understand you better and recognize what you say. It is not linked to other data that Apple may have from your use of other Apple services. By using Siri, you agree and consent to Apple’s and its subsidiaries’ and agents’ transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of this information, including your voice input and User Data, to provide and improve Siri and other Apple products and services. If you have Location Services turned on, the location of your iOS Device at the time you make a request will also be sent to Apple to help Siri improve the accuracy of its response to your location-based requests. You may disable the location-based functionality of Siri by going to the Location Services setting on your iOS Device and turning off the individual location setting for Siri. You can also turn off Siri altogether at any time. To do so, open Settings, tap General, tap Siri, and slide the Siri switch to “off”. You may also restrict the ability to use Siri under the Restrictions Setting." (Emphasis is in the original text).

N.B.: "[Siri data] is not linked to other data that Apple may have from your use of other Apple services."

Where is Google's policy on Android? For years, Google did not post its privacy policy on its home page, in defiance of California law--Google's home state.

It's been conjectured that Netflix wanted to spin off its mail-order business because a loose interpretation of the Video Privacy Protection Act from the 1980s would prevent the on-line portion of its business from sharing customer information with "partners". Did Google stop selling the Nexus for the same reason?

Under Software>iOS5:By using Siri, you agree and consent to Apple’s and its subsidiaries’ and agents’ transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of this information, including your voice input and User Data, to provide and improve Siri and other Apple products and services. If you have Location Services turned on, the location of your iOS Device at the time you make a request will also be sent to Apple to help Siri improve the accuracy of its response to your location-based requests.

I thank you for your help in locating that information although my worst case scenario has now been confirmed to be true.

I agree with most of it I suppose. Apple's purchase of Siri was a great decision. Especially the deep integration it has. I however would not use this in public, and would probably laugh / shake my head at anyone who does when I finally see it happen.

I would however use it to send a text to someone while driving.

A lot of these features have been available on Android for quite a while. As in, with a single button press, I can tell my phone to call anyone, to send a text message, or to start voice navigation.

Everything else that Siri has is usually just a glorified Google search.

Your response, plus that of Rubin and Lees, is great news for Apple - it demonstrates that people are asleep at the wheel, as usual, unaware of the fact that the firmament just shifted beneath them.

The inability of Rubin to see the value in this technology, and both of their insistence on comparing it to their own really poor voice control implementations, shows that they still don't get the fact that the devil really is in the details. Revolutionary is an emergent property.

Would you rather have Apple mine your data for the specific, stated, purpose of improving the Siri service...

Or have Google mine your data with the specific purpose of selling your information?

Easy choice, Eh?

I think you are selectively reading the parts of the policy that sound reasonable and ignoring the parts that don't. They are sharing it with subsidies and agents to improve Siri and other Apple products and services. Why they have to share it with other agents and what other products they are repurposing the information for is not disclosed. I could see them sharing it with ad agencies to improve iAd for example.

I think you are selectively reading the parts of the policy that sound reasonable and ignoring the parts that don't. They are sharing it with subsidies and agents to improve Siri and other Apple products and services. Why they have to share it with other agents and what other products they are repurposing the information for is not disclosed. I could see them sharing it with ad agencies to improve iAd for example.

Apple has stated elsewhere (not Siri related) that your information is aggregated for use by iAd advertisers...

I suspect that Apple will follow a similar policy if they choose to share Siri data.

But what I believe they will do is share your information (sanitized if necessary) with Nuance, Wolfram, Yelp, etc. to improve the results and performance of Siri and its support structure.

Based on my 33 years of experience with Apple, I believe that they will do everything within their power to protect our privacy.

Traditionally, Apple has been very careful about their dedication to user privacy -- a promise, if broken... not easily mended.

On the other hand Google seems to feel that they are entitled to all information...

Eric Schmidt [then] Google CEO: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

Traditionally, Apple has been very careful about their dedication to user privacy -- a promise, if broken... not easily mended.

On the other hand Google seems to feel that they are entitled to all information...

Exactly.
Just look at the slow, careful pains Apple took to sign up the record labels and movie studios with iTunes (and iTunes Match). Look how quickly Apple responded to the "location-gate" bug: Simultaneous security updates provided across the last 3-years' of iOS hardware. What did Google do?

Contrast that with Google's approach of stomping on intellectual property rights. Copying million-volume libraries and distributing books on the Internet without authors' permission. Recording Wi-Fi data wholesale. Android policies and bugs that leave your personal data open to being swiped--deja vu Windows--with no recourse to fix many of these bugs unless you buy a new smartphone each month.

Of course, Google would prefer to be portrayed as a "pioneer". Facebook would, too. "Going where no man [with a sense of propriety] has gone before." That's a problem with our IP and privacy laws that are 30 years out of date.

Many of us who buy Apple products regularly have been surprised by some of the things Apple has turned out. Steve & Co. worked very hard to keep it that way. Respectfully, I disagree with the view that Apple customers are "dumb", and instead I just think that it can be very smart for a company to not telegraph their every move publicly.

Nice try.. but the people I was calling dumb are people that were fooled when someone asked Steve Jobs, essentially: "are you working on a secret video iPad/phone/whatever project -- then are surprised when he doesn't reveal Apple's secret project plans...

Whether they are Apple customers or not has no bearing on their gullibility to believe a stupid answer to a stupid question... this is obvious to even the meanest intelligence.

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

Wife (a professional musician running late to a gig--as always): Asks me, "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Me: "Just ask your phone"
Wife to Siri: "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Siri shows map with push pin.
Wife touches push pin
Phone displays address of Blah House in Dallas
Wife punches address into GPS and screeches out of the driveway.

Folks, give it up. My musician wife is in love with the thing.

Instead of punching in the address on her GPS, she could have simply asked Siri, How do I get there? and it would have set up a route on the iPhone.

On Android you can already say "Text Joe, I am going to be late. Sorry bud. Send." and it'll send. With Siri, you can now say "Hello Siri. How are you? Please text Joe that I will be late. Sorry bud."

Yeah, it's cool in demos and when you get your shiny new toy. But what's the longevity on that? Unless you like the sound of your own voice, you're going to learn to optimize Siri to do what you want quickly. And do you know what that will sound like?

I see a lot of folks trying to say Siri isn't ready or Siri isn't much use. I think you're wrong. This really happened in my garage just moments after getting her phone setup:

Wife (a professional musician running late to a gig--as always): Asks me, "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Me: "Just ask your phone"
Wife to Siri: "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Siri shows map with push pin.
Wife touches push pin
Phone displays address of Blah House in Dallas
Wife punches address into GPS and screeches out of the driveway.

However I suspect upon further teardown of the 4S we will see some suspicious enhancements to the microphones and more importantly, exploitation of the A5 for enhanced audio processing to enhance Siri's recognition capabilities.

It has been reported that teardowns show that Apple did away with the dedicated noise-cancelling chip present in previous iPhones, and has moved that functionality to the A5. I am guessing, knowing Apple, that they have improved the algorithms which enhances Siri functionality.

It is probable that this is one of the reasons for the limitation to the 4S.

But, you (from your device, location, IP address, cookies, etc.) won't make the request to Google -- Siri will, through Apple's servers... Google will not know who you are or be able to mine your data!

NCDC is going to get a lot of advertising spam.

By using Siri, we are deputizing her to protect our privacy!

I was referring to Google's voice recognition. Google will find a way to monetize it.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

Everyone is so smug in their satisfaction that Apple hit another homerun and the other guys are badmouthing it because they are scared.

Hardly.

Apple is a bit of a johnny-come-lately to this, and while Siri is definitely crowd pleasing, it really only does one thing new: maintain more detailed state, allowing it to remember more things about you and use that information to help it respond better. That is certainly a decent innovation, but it's not some sort of massive revolutionary leap, nor is it a massive threat to Android or Windows Phone.

Microsoft, in particular, is in a good position to compete with its TellMe product. All it really needs to do is beef up its command set, add a dollop of natural language processing and a more detailed state machine, and it will be able to compete toe-to-toe with Siri. Actually, it will be better than Siri because it will have much more voice sample data to draw from (TellMe is used all over the place... Kinect, Microsoft Auto, call centers, in Windows 7, and on and on) and it will have a lot more content to draw from; where Apple has to rely on partners like Google, Yelp, Wolfram Alpha and so on to get its data, Microsoft has Bing and Google has... well.. Google.

That's not to say Siri is a bad product, because it isn't. But let's not count out Google and Microsoft yet, shall we. Apple may have scored the first hits in this new battle, but Microsoft and Google have much more potent weapons than Apple may suspect.

Everyone is so smug in their satisfaction that Apple hit another homerun and the other guys are badmouthing it because they are scared.

Hardly.

Apple is a bit of a johnny-come-lately to this, and while Siri is definitely crowd pleasing, it really only does one thing new: maintain more detailed state, allowing it to remember more things about you and use that information to help it respond better. That is certainly a decent innovation, but it's not some sort of massive revolutionary leap, nor is it a massive threat to Android or Windows Phone.

Microsoft, in particular, is in a good position to compete with its TellMe product. All it really needs to do is beef up its command set, add a dollop of natural language processing and a more detailed state machine, and it will be able to compete toe-to-toe with Siri. Actually, it will be better than Siri because it will have much more voice sample data to draw from (TellMe is used all over the place... Kinect, Microsoft Auto, call centers, in Windows 7, and on and on) and it will have a lot more content to draw from; where Apple has to rely on partners like Google, Yelp, Wolfram Alpha and so on to get its data, Microsoft has Bing and Google has... well.. Google.

That's not to say Siri is a bad product, because it isn't. But let's not count out Google and Microsoft yet, shall we. Apple may have scored the first hits in this new battle, but Microsoft and Google have much more potent weapons than Apple may suspect.

Show me a competitive product with 25 million users by Jan 1, 2012... Then we'll talk!

This game is already over!

Sorry... My prediction is that Siri wins... First/best to market, and all that!

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

Show me a competitive product with 25 million users by Jan 1, 2012... Then we'll talk!

This game is already over!

Sorry... My prediction is that Siri wins... First/best to market, and all that!

That's what people said about iPhone. And now Android devices outsell iPhones by a considerable margin.

TellMe already has (by my estimation) many millions of users, when you add up everyone who has bought a kinect, a Ford car equipped with Sync or a Windows Phone. All of those products already offer highly robust voice recognition, some natural language processing and fairly robust command sets.

That's what people said about iPhone. And now Android devices outsell iPhones by a considerable margin.

TellMe already has (by my estimation) many millions of users, when you add up everyone who has bought a kinect, a Ford car equipped with Sync or a Windows Phone. All of those products already offer highly robust voice recognition, some natural language processing and fairly robust command sets.

Watch and learn...

They have rather simplistic voice recognition and no context-sensitive conversational dialog.

It ain't in the speach-to-text software, or the simple command language offered by MS and Google... It's the whole infrastructure.

Siri is the pinch-zoom gesture of 2011... Wait and see!

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

I agree with most of it I suppose. Apple's purchase of Siri was a great decision. Especially the deep integration it has. I however would not use this in public, and would probably laugh / shake my head at anyone who does when I finally see it happen.

Have you used the "lift to speak" feature yet? It looks like you are making a phone call, and your conversation remains just between you and Siri.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaroonMushroom

Everything else that Siri has is usually just a glorified Google search.

Not true. Not true in the slightest. You have not explored Siri, but you are placing your opinion out there anyway.

You can ask Siri things like, "What is the least common multiple of 12 and 18?", "What is the greatest common factor of 36 and 45?", "What is 3456.23 times 234?", "Why is the sky blue?", etc. One service that gives you back the answers there is Wolfram Alpha, which is far more than a "glorified web search". Other queries are just as cool and use other services, such as OpenTable. In fact, the only time a web search gets involved is when Siri fails to get a satisfactory answer for you. She is teaching us that to fall back on Google = to fail. What a great way to position the business case!

Everyone is so smug in their satisfaction that Apple hit another homerun and the other guys are badmouthing it because they are scared.

Hardly.

Apple is a bit of a johnny-come-lately to this, and while Siri is definitely crowd pleasing, it really only does one thing new: maintain more detailed state, allowing it to remember more things about you and use that information to help it respond better. That is certainly a decent innovation, but it's not some sort of massive revolutionary leap, nor is it a massive threat to Android or Windows Phone.

Well, going by experience in the last decade, we should compare this innovation to:

1. iPod and the click-wheel interface (nothing really all that different there from other music players)
2. iPhone and capacitive multitouch (nothing really all that new here - touch has been around for a long time, and a stylus is almost the same)
3. iPad and a new type of tablet (almost uniformly panned by very serious people - just a giant iPhone)

When Apple tells me they have incorporated a game-changing innovation in a new product, even if I can see similarities to products on the market, I am now giving them credence.

I don't think they would risk their reputation and track record by pulling the wool over my eyes.